THE DEER TRAIL

When I walk off the ferry, I know two things: that I wore the wrong clothes, and that Tessa is worse than I thought. I see her right away, but only because she is standing apart from the crowd. She is waiting by a bike rack, a green umbrella in one hand and a leash attached to a dog in the other. I am grateful that I see her first.

She has stopped colouring her hair. It's shot through with grey now and pinned carelessly on top of her head. Instead of the tailored suits I remember, she wears an old blue sweater, shapeless jeans, and a pair of paint-splattered hiking boots. I am surprised I even recognize her.

When she spots me, she waves the open umbrella high over her head. The dog—a shaggy white thing—strains at the leash and begins to bark.

"Olivia!" Her arms wrap around me, and she rocks me from side to side, laughing out loud. She smells like dirt, wet wool, garlic; possibly even horseshit. "Oh, damn! Look! I've made you soggy." She rubs the sleeve of her blue sweater feebly against the lapel of my suede jacket.

"No," I tell her. "It's fine. It's all right. Really." But it isn't fine, not really. I feel overdressed and out of place in this alien, rural landscape. "Is it always this wet here?" I pat the side of my now-limp hair, tiny beads of moisture clinging to the last remnants of my curls. It's not really rain; it's more a heavy mist, held hostage under an oppressive, grey sky.

"This is Vancouver Island!" Tessa chirps. "Rain is what we do. Come on, you must be exhausted, and Anton is dying to meet you!"

Anton: baker, poet, builder of yurts, and according to Tessa, a culinary wizard. I have not met him, this man my friend has left everything for.

There are papers scattered across the backseat of Tessa's jeep, and when I open the passenger door, she catches me wrinkling my nose.

"Oh," she says, "I know. It's bad, isn't it? Eau de Chien. Sorry."

"It's not that bad," I lie, pulling the seatbelt tight across my lap. Fine, white hairs cover it, and everything else. "What happened to the Jetta?"

"The Volkswagen? Jettisoned!" She laughs at her joke. "Just another "thing" I unloaded when I arrived here. All part of the master plan."

There was a plan, Tessa? So running away to live with a man who bakes quinoa bread and quotes Cohen all day was a premeditated move. I want to ask her this but don't. That conversation, if it's to happen at all, will come later, over a bottle of wine—a nice spicy Shiraz, perhaps—like me, Tessa has always loved those full-bodied reds.

We get closer we get to the seaside village of Cowichan Bay—the place Tessa now calls home, and I find myself feigning interest at the flat, nondescript farms that roll past the window.

The house is smaller than it appears in Tessa's photos. Tiny. Blue. Quaint. A crumbling(,) dry stone wall borders the gravel driveway, flanked on one side by a rustic driftwood trellis, heavily decorated with pieces of beach glass. There are some cracked ceramic pots on the front steps, still holding last summer's leggy geraniums; a wheelbarrow with a flat tire listing to one side in the grass. It is hard to believe that Tessa lives here.

She shuts off the engine and twists in her seat to face me. "Holy shit, Liv. I can't believe you're here. God, it's good to see you!"

"I know. I know...it's been way too long." My words sound trite(,) my voice unfamiliar.

Tessa embraces me again, laughing as the white dog pushes his nose between us, a long string of drool suspended from the side of his mouth. I follow my friend to the sagging front porch, past two sun-bleached Adirondack chairs—one yellow, the other red—the paint peeling away in long, papery curls.

Come on," Tessa says, picking up an empty mug from the arm of the red chair. "A cup of tea is only minutes away."

Tea is not what I had in mind.

***

I suppose you could say that Anton is a good host. He moves effortlessly around the tiny, cluttered kitchen, stirring saucepans, chopping vegetables, all the while humming mindlessly as "we girls" catch up. I resent the way he says this, as though he has known Tessa for decades instead of a mere eight months.

Tessa and I sit at the kitchen table—a pitted, rustic butcher-block style monstrosity. It's the sort of country furnishing she used to despise, at least the Tessa I know. But when I see the muddy explosion of footwear near the back door and the braided lengths of fat, unwashed garlic bulbs hanging from a corner of the ceiling, I'm no longer sure I know anything(,) at least about Tessa.

Anton peels carrots at the sink. "How about Rooibos, girls? Okay by you, Olivia?"

"Excuse me?"

"Rooibos," he says. "The tea. Or maybe you'd prefer chamomile?" He fills the kettle from a pitcher in the fridge and sets it on the stove.

"Sure," I say. "That sounds nice." It doesn't sound nice; I'm dying for a cup of strong coffee.

Moments later, Anton sets a brown-speckled teapot on the table, followed by a basket of rustic-looking crackers, and a blue bowl containing something colourless—something made with a lot of garlic, and possibly eggplant.

"Tessa doesn't do coffee anymore," Anton explains, smiling at my friend, "but I think there might be some instant hiding around here somewhere if you'd prefer." He rummages in the cupboards, eventually producing a small jar of Nescafé. He sets it before me with a dramatic flourish.

"Oh, the tea is fine," I say with a forced smile. "But thank you just the same."

He stands too close to me when he talks. Says my name too much. How was the flight out from Calgary, Olivia? Did you enjoy the ferry, Olivia? I hear you're training for a half-marathon, Olivia? I think this is a new-age thing; make direct eye contact, and use a person's name often to establish an easy and intimate rapport.

I don't think I like Anton.

***

"I don't think you like Anton," Tessa says two days later. We are walking along a hiking trail that runs beside the Cowichan estuary. For the first time since I arrived, it is not raining.

"That's not true," I lie. "I don't even know him."

The weak October sunlight brightens the tips of the grassy meadow to one side of us, but everything is still wet. Soaked.

"Look at that!" Tessa says, changing the subject. She reaches into the pocket of her jacket and pulls out her phone.

"What?"

"The meadow. The raindrops. They look like little jewels, don't you think? Little diamonds."

I hesitate. "Sure."

Tessa puts the camera back in her pocket without taking a photo.

We venture off the main path and start down a well-travelled deer trail that cuts through a trail of rose hips and snowberry bushes. In the distance, I can see steam rising from the ground near the maple trees that grow near the road.

"So why?" Tessa asks. "Why don't you like him?"

"I told you," I say, slightly irritated. "I don't even know him."

"Don't insult me, Liv. I know you."

My head has been pounding for twenty-four hours, a by-product of Tessa's new caffeine-free lifestyle. "Listen. Is there anywhere close by where I can get a decent cup of coffee?"

Tessa ignores the question. "I'm not an idiot, Liv. Your whole face changes when he's in the room."

A ragged formation of Canada Geese flies straight over our heads, honking as they head in the direction of the mudflats.

"It's just..." I begin, "John was, is such a good man, Tessa. He—"

She stops on the path and looks at me. Her pale blue eyes seem even lighter than I remember, almost translucent.

"I just..." I say. "I mean, how could you do it, Tess? Give up John, and your job, and the city, and, well, everything?"

"I was unhappy for a long time, Liv. You knew that."

"No, I didn't. Well, not really. I mean, you and John had your moments, but hell, you were together for twenty-two years. All couples bicker. Look at Michael and me. We hardly even talk these days unless it's to argue about what to have for dinner. Christ, he probably hasn't even noticed that I'm gone." I laugh. "You don't see me running off."

"And you don't see me killing a bottle of wine every night anymore, either(,)" Tessa says quietly. "Are you still doing that?"

"Oh, come on! You make it sound like you had some kind of problem." I shift on my feet and smile at her, hoping she'll soften and crack a joke the way she always used to when our conversations occasionally strayed into uncomfortable territory.

"Are you serious, Liv? I did have a problem: John and I! John and I were a big! Fucking! Problem!"

I flinch. I have never known Tessa to swear. I look down at my feet. My Italian leather boots have been replaced with green-striped goloshes, left behind by Tessa's daughter when she last visited. They are heinous, but I don't want to destroy my boots. "OK," I finally say. "So I take it that Anton has fixed your life then?"

Tessa looks at me as though I'm a stranger, not her friend of seventeen years. "Olivia. I fixed my life. I left. I bought that broken little house up the hill over there with every dollar I could scrape together. Don't you get it at all? I mean, Anton bought me a goddam dog! I've wanted a dog for twenty years. And he's allergic! He has to take an allergy shot once a month so that Henry can live with us."

"I guess he really likes dogs," I say coldly.

"No, Liv. He really likes me."

"Well...isn't that nice."

It starts to rain again. Tessa veers off the trail and walks straight into the meadow, pushing aside the wet, waist-high grass as she zigzags blindly toward the road. I watch her, unsure whether or not to follow before I turn back on the familiar deer trail, the simplest route back to where I started.

END